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Until I read the transcript of President Barack Obama's rambling, incoherent 2,600-word answer to a simple question from "Doris" at an appearance in Charlotte, N.C., about how we can afford Obamacare when we are already overtaxed, I dismissed as absurd the notion that he's a Manchurian candidate  a plant. I still do, but after reading his response, I seriously almost have to question his competence.

I didn't watch the video, but the unscripted answer  no disrespect intended  sounds as if it was delivered by a drunk on an ideological mission. His answer was a veritable clinic in narcissistic circumlocution, a mishmash of barely related talking points about his health care plan  not about taxes, as Doris had requested.

Where are all these liberal elitists, including those masquerading as conservative intellectuals, who told us they voted for him largely based on his intellectual acuity? Pride means never having to say you're sorry. But you should be.

It's obvious how disorganized his thinking is when you read his answer.

But his answer didn't just lack meaningful structure. It wasn't a case of his making a lot of sense on various points but just failing to tie them together. Some of the answers themselves were embarrassingly silly  the height of unsophisticated thinking. Some were reckless, especially from the president of the United States.

We've seen this before from him  way too often. I'm not talking about his "57 states" gaffe or something similar that could be written off as a slip of the tongue. You know, mere "Bushisms," for which the leftist media savaged President George W. Bush. No, these were much worse.

I'm talking about statements like, "If there's a blue pill and a red bill and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half-price for the thing that's going to make you well?"

The whole Marxist concept of central planning is a historically failed idea. But can you imagine if this guy were doing the planning? Oh, that's right; he is.

But the red pill/blue pill statement was at least not directly slanderous toward the medical profession. But how about his suggestion that if a kid comes to a doctor with a sore throat, "the doctor may look at the reimbursement system and say to himself, 'You know what? I make a lot more money if I take this kid's tonsils out'"?

Or how about his equally malicious statement that a doctor might choose to amputate a diabetic's foot to make "$30,000, $40,000, $50,000" instead of working with the patient to help him lose weight and otherwise control his disease?

That Obama was off by a multiple of 30, 40 or 50 in his estimate is not the most objectionable part of his statement. His implication that your family care practitioner is corrupt enough to routinely engage in such evil acts as unnecessary tonsillectomies and foot amputations reveals a sinister cynicism.

Is he projecting again? His answer is "troublesome," to borrow a term, not to mention divorced from reality. Again, the president of the United States used his position to defame an entire profession. And don't tell me he was talking about the exceptional case. He was implying it is a frequent occurrence; otherwise it would have been irrelevant to his point that we need a different system. But do you know doctors like the ones Obama was describing? I didn't think so.

Now, back to his 2,600-word soliloquy, in which he continued in this pattern. At one point, he said something a high schooler would be embarrassed to have uttered in public. In explaining some of his health care reforms  which had nothing to do with Doris' question about over-taxation, by the way  he said, "We're going to start encouraging paying doctors not based on how many tests they take, but based on the quality of the outcome  does somebody end up healthy." Who's the "we"? I thought the government wasn't going to control care. Right.

But it gets better. He said: "If you go to the doctor you get one test. Then (you are) referred to a specialist, you get another test. Then maybe you go to a third person, the surgeon, you get a third test  it's all the same test but you're paying three times. So … we'll pay you for the first test and then e-mail the test to everybody. Right? Or have all three doctors in the room when the test is being taken."

I kid you not. This was not "Saturday Night Live." This was our president  our new socialized medicine czar. Read the transcript and freak.

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David Limbaugh, a columnist and attorney practicing in Cape
Girardeau, Mo. Comment by clicking here.

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